Baby wanted: Couples adopting through Craigslist

People go to Craiglist to find a job, buy a used couch, hire a plumber—and now they’re visiting the online marketplace to adopt a baby.

A reporter at Yahoo Shine followed the increasing number of couples who are using social media to connect with pregnant women looking to give up their babies for adoption.

Websites, like ParentProfiles.com and Adoptomism.com, match prospective parents with birth moms, but Piper Weiss found in her research that these hopeful couples are often most successful on Craigslist.

This might sound crazy, but think about it. What would you do if you desperately wanted a child and tried IVF countless times without any success?

You might consider adopting from another country but regulations are making this increasingly difficult. Russia, for example, tightened its rules for Americans adopting Russian babies, after a flurry of abuse cases enraged the Russian community.

You might also sign up with a U.S. adoption agency—and their caseworkers would likely advise you to create a website and a Facebook page about your family for prospective birth moms. Adoption is competitive and you need to sell yourself. This would get you online and you’d quickly learn that some desperate couples are finding babies on Craigslist. Why not try it yourself?

In her Yahoo post, Weiss tells the story of a couple who went through a similar process.

Tracey and Dan Citron of Minnesota turned to adoption “after six unsuccessful cycles on infertility medication.” They signed up with an agency that encouraged them to be proactive with outreach. The Citrons built a website featuring photos of themselves, their pets and home. They printed postcards and business cards. “When we paid waitresses, we’d stick a postcard with our tip,” Tracey told Shine.

They eventually started posting ads on Craigslist and that’s where they met Tammy Nelson, a 24-year-old single mom in Arizona. Yahoo reports:

[Nelson] was in the process of extricating herself from what she describes as an abusive relationship, and she couldn’t afford to care for a second child. She worried that going to an adoption agency could put her and her child at risk if her ex found out. So one night she went online and plugged in the search terms “adoption” and “Phoenix, Arizona.”

“Tracey and Dan’s Craigslist ad was the second thing that came up in the search,” said Tammy. “I was able to call them up and talk to them in secret without needing outside sources or having to drive anywhere.”

The Citrons and Nelsons hit it off and hired a lawyer to take them through the adoption process. All adoption expenses cost the Citrons about $25,000. When you adopt through Craigslist you still need to go through a legal process and couples hire a lawyer or pay an agency to facilitate the process.

Weiss isn’t able to track down any specific numbers on Craigslist adoptions but she interviews several families who successfully adopted through the site—and she talks to a few who faced fraud online. “Scammers will email wanting to know how much you’ll pay but say they don’t want to go through an adoption agency,” Andrea Mason, 34, another person looking to adopt on Craigslist, told Shine, “or they’ll ask what you’ll provide and say other parents will pay this much.”

Over at Yahoo, readers are quick to judge people who turn to Craigslist to adopt.

One reader shares:

I disagree with this process entirely. Who performs the background checks on these so called parents? Sounds like an open door to predators and human trafficking.

Another chimes in:

I hope the parents just kept everything in secret. This will grow as a big issue and it might ruin the kid’s life.

Yes, adopting through Craigslist seems risky since it’s a place that’s increasingly becoming known for cons and frauds, and adopting a child is a far more delicate and important transaction than, say, buying a used dishwasher. It’s difficult to fathom that you’d look for used housewares (not to mention one-night stands) and cuddly, living, breathing babies in the same place. But the everyday nature of the site might be what makes it a great place for parents looking to adopt. Craigslist is where people go to buy, sell, trade, find, give away. Things happen on Craigslist, and when you’re a weary couple who has been trying to start a family with little success for years this is actually what you want. Can transactions go bad? Yes. But anyone who has used Craigslist knows that more often they go right.